I am currently using a really old version of Photoshop, and am looking for an alternative to do basic photo editing that does not involve a subscription plan. Frankly, I am trying to move away from Adobe in general.
I use Affinity Photo, definitely a complete replacement for Photoshop. It has all the features and a similar UI (which I’ve found to be more intuitive than Photoshop).
I also use Affinity Designer to replace Illustrator (I use it for doing user interface mockups).
The MacOS and iPad apps are extremely polished.
Affinity Photo and Designer for gets the vote from me. I used to use Adobe but found paying £49.99 month crazy as i didn’t use all the apps.
I am very pleased with the offering from Affinity and they also have Publisher coming out soon
I use Affinity Photo. To use it right, i did a course at udemy. But there are enough free tutorials and you can get a free version to try out for several days.
Maybe you like DxO OpticsPro 11 - from time to time they give it away for free. For me more then enough functions - use it only to correct the perspective.
I use Adobe Photoshop Elements - mostly because I’ve been using it for years and I find it easy to navigate. I don’t mind dropping $100 for an upgrade version every few years and it integrates well with Lightroom and Photos.
Affinity Foto if you need a lot of power (at the price of a steep learning curve) and Pixelmator if you want an easy and capable app. Both word very well on Mac and iPad (whre the Apple Pencil is very useful).